Liar, Liar
by Adreus
Summary: post-canon, for secret santa — so far, vector has figured out five things: (1) he's not dead/receded into don thousand's consciousness for the rest of eternity; (2) he can't lie; (3) he's lost his barian powers; (4) it is cold; (5) mall sample food sucks, and he could've just taken some from the dumpster that he woke up in this morning.


**Notes: **Realization: I never posted this here. Which is a shame, because writing from Vector's point-of-view is fantastic (although the first section is from Yuma). This was for zexalmas last December!

* * *

_Liar, Liar_

* * *

It takes three months for things to settle in.

The first month is the slowest; thirty days that feel like sixty, because maybe Kaito is around and Kotori is around and Tetsuo and Tokunosuke and Cathy and the president are around, but there're three ghosts, too, and getting used to their presence is a slow process. At lunch, there are two empty spaces and one empty sky; after school, sometimes he walks with Kotori and sometimes he finds himself walking with Kaito, but most often he walks alone, runs the entire way back so his heart is too busy to wonder about Astral, to wonder about Shark, to wonder about a promise—

—_I swear I'll be back, I've just gotta take care of this one thing_—don't do this alone, I'll help you—_I'm not alone, Yuma_—

—and when Yuma stumbles home he tires himself out too much to dream in his sleep. Day in, day out, one hour one day one week and then one month, and Yuma's on his way to numbness even if he's not on his way to entirely okay.

Then the second month comes around and Yuma's at home and alone on a day off from school and there's a knock at the door and a Barian king shuffling his feet at Yuma's doorstep, hair cut and fingers conscious of it, tucking it behind his ears and it falling out again; cheeks pink and puffed and eyes panicked, worry etched into his face, worry about if Yuma's okay, worry about if Yuma's forgotten, worry about what to say and how to say it and _does he even care anymore_—

Arms around each other and crying into shoulders, sinking to the floor, two boys who've had no choice in becoming men.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

And things start to get better, like a lifetime's worth of memories is living out in each moment of each day, one breath, two breath, your breath, my breath, and Shark's here, and so is Rio, and so maybe there's no Astral (but he promised, too,_ we'll meet again some day_) and maybe there're still people on his mind—Alit and Durbe and Mizael and Gilag—but life picks up, and a month is finally a month again.

Then comes round three, on a day when—surprise!—Shark skips school again, but this time it's apparently within reason, because he's leaning on a wall outside the building when classes let out and he takes Yuma's hand and mutters so no one else will hear, "I've gotta show you something," and Yuma doesn't know what to expect when he's dragged to the Kamishiro mansion on the other side of Heartland, but what he gets isn't it, because he thought that Shark and Rio lived in an apartment and he thought that they lived alone, but when he gets there…

"Oy, Nasch!" calls a voice into the cold, and Yuma recognizes that voice, recognizes its owner, and recognizes the other Barians shouting after it when Alit, Gilag, Mizael, and Durbe all appear outside one after the other, a grin or a smile or a scowl or a frown—and so, three months pass by, and things are better than okay, and they all settle in.

But if it takes three months for things to settle in, it takes approximately two seconds for them to break out again.

* * *

The coldest winter that Heartland's ever seen is just above freezing, and Vector has two things to his name. They are:

(1) His jacket

(2) Nothing, because he is not a legal citizen of Heartland City, and therefore cannot show the welfare office his birth certificate or anything else to receive holiday benefits

(3) His charming smile

At least, standing in front of the mirror in the central mall during the holiday rush, Vector knows that he looks hot. He grins at himself a few times, smirks, frowns, squishes his own cheeks, giggles, and hell yeah, he is _attractive_. But being as hot as he is doesn't actually make the temperature go up or a place to stay for the night magically appear, and the idiot whose house he broke into last year got a new alarm system. Which. Lame.

It's the end of the year and the start of a brand new leaf or whatever the hell it is, and for lack of an apartment or shelter or a box to live in or something, Vector's been roaming the mall for the past two hours bored out of his mind. He woke up in a dumpster earlier that morning; he doesn't remember how he got there, or, like, anything at all after the whole part where he was sucked into Don Thousand's consciousness, but here he is now, human, hot, hungry, homeless, and more than anything else, unentertained. The mall is decorated with a whole bunch of Christmas shit and there are sale signs advertising things for his ~loved ones~, and it's really a shame that Vector doesn't know where Miza-chan is, or he'd _definitely_ go ahead and get him the gold ring with the feather on it or one of those his and her bracelets sets for him and his Galaxy-Eyes Boner Dragon to match.

Oh, well. He's broke, anyway. He'd try to steal some money from the Hot Topic or something—they always seem to think he's an employee when he shows up—buuuut he's been having a bit of a… problem. In _that_ department.

Vector balls his fists and clenches his teeth. Into the bathroom mirror he tries to say, "Mizael is an ug—"

But he can't. His throat stays locked in the middle syllable, won't let sound through again no matter how hard he tries, and he glares at his reflection and punches the mirror so hard the glass shatters and some of it cuts his skin and he bleeds and screeches when he gets his voice back again and bounces around the dressing room like a wounded, um, animal.

See, Vector can't lie.

He's been trying all morning, ever since he woke up in the dumpster and some punkass kid asked him why he smelled like shit, to which his planned retort was "I was in bed with your dad last night," but he wasn't in bed with that kid's dad last night, wasn't even in bed with the kid's mom or his sister, and couldn't say as much; fell onto his feet and put out a hand and weirded the kid out and then planked on the street, wondering what the hell had happened, why he couldn't say it. He tried again: "I was in bed with that kid's dad last night," to no avail; "Durbe isn't a tool," and nothing; "My name is Shingetsu Rei"—no, and then it started to hurt a little, too.

So Vector couldn't lie, and Vector can't lie, and he didn't and doesn't know why and he's too pissed to wonder, and it started to rain and he needed shelter because it was cold and it'd turn into snow soon and Vector hates the snow, hates the cold hates the ice hates the festivity, so, naturally, he made his way to the mall and here he is now, locked inside the bathroom stall for the disabled for the better part of an hour (the knocking went away when he told it to go use a blender from IKEA if it really couldn't wait for him, this was _important_).

So far Vector's figured out five things:

(1) He's not dead/receded into Donk's consciousness for the rest of eternity

(2) He can't lie

(3) He's lost his Barian powers

(4) It is cold

(5) Mall sample food is the shit (that he could've just taken from the dumpster)

And so far Vector's To-Do list consists of two things:

(1) He would like to shower in some Axe

(2) This is Nasch's fault, and he is going to get his revenge

(3) Or Yuma's fault

(4) But Tsukumo Yuma is Nasch's fault

(5) So, you know

There's only one thing to do. Vector steps out of the bathroom, kicks around the shards of broken glass a little so they're easier to step on for the next unsuspecting idiot, blows a flying kiss into his reflection in a shard on the way out, and is en route to Tsukumo Yuma's place when he runs into something that looks familiar, like a lost pet dog, or something, and, hey, Vector thinks he'll follow it home.

* * *

Alit and Gilag forgot the keys, so Merag's the one that lets them in. Vector lurks outside the gates and glares; they're all gathering without him, eh? And after _all_ he did for them, too.

Vector takes off his jacket, ties it around his waist; messes up his hair as much as he can, and nods at his dumpster pants, like, yeah, that doesn't need any work. His teeth chatter and the wind bites at his arms as he fights against it to the front door; he growls at the window, where he can see inside into the warm light and into the stereotypical holiday fire, which Merag should go ahead and sit in, and then he rings the doorbell.

The chatter inside dies down.

"Probably Yuma," someone says, and Vector is both gleeful to disappoint them and insulted at the very suggestion.

Alit's the one who opens the door. Vector grins and spreads out his arms, shivering.

"Jan jan jaaaaaaaan!"

Alit stares.

Vector grins wider. "_Jan jan jaaaan_!"

"..."

"What, is your brain defective or something? Hello? It's me?"

"I'm calling the cops."

Alit makes to shut the door; Vector wedges his foot to stop him and yelps in pain when it hits, trips when Alit opens it again and tries to kick Vector out.

"Hold on," says a voice Vector recognizes and loathes, and then there's Nasch wrinkling his nose above him.

* * *

Nasch pities him. Vector ends up getting the keys to the old apartment where Ryoga and Rio stayed before they moved back into the cute eight emperor estate, which is so _sweet_ and _thoughtful_ of Nasch that Vector would offer to make him a fucking citizen award, except that Vector doesn't know that Nasch would appreciate the artwork in full and doesn't plan on exerting the effort to find out. He snatches the keys and smiles, squishes Nasch's cheeks and smooches his forehead before he's tossed out the gate, and, aww, how cute, Nasch's been working out.

He already knows where the apartment is from before, at least.

Vector walks to the building, rubs the soles of his shoes in the mud outside; takes his shoes off and goes all the way to the fourth floor in his socks; puts his shoes back on, walks in, cranks up the radio, and sings along jumping around on Ryoga's bed, which had shark sheets on it but now it just looks like Vector took a crap. Which he might've. He'll never tell.

Thing is, Vector gets bored pretty quickly, turns on the TV but there's nothing but stupid family friendly holiday movies on or re-runs of anime that no one cares about, and there's no food in the fridge or the cabinets, and Nasch didn't even have the decency to give him the Wi-Fi password, the useless asshole, and around the time Vector just considers going through the baby albums and making a collage of Nasch's naked visage in all its kingly glory and mailing it to Yuma, the heater breaks down, too. Vector thinks he can get it to work if he maybe smashes it to pieces and surgically attaches them to Nasch's head, but sitting on his knees and shivering with the baby butt pictures in his face? Vector gets another idea.

* * *

Tsukumo Yuma's house is one with which he's intimately familiar, and not just because he's been intimate inside it—_because you haven't_, his mind tells him, and Vector flips it the bird and a _fuck off_, to which it responds, _that is what did not happen_, and Vector scoffs, _I was being clever_ and gets, _liar, _and, well, _yeah, kind of._

Anyway, Vector spent nights here even before Shingetsu Rei; in the interim between his initial, ah, defeat and his plans as Yuma's classmate, Vector scouted out the situation, spent nights in the bushes, planning, watching, and if that sounds too much like _Twilight_, Vector'd like you to know that he _loved _that book, you _monster, _and to him it's even sort of an inspiration. Watching Yuma was a bit of a sport, and he cackled to himself about the plan for weeks before he enacted it, because he had to time it perfectly, you know, had to give Yuma the appropriate time to relax with his friends and with Astral before Vector ripped it all to pieces and sent it tumbling into hell.

And it worked, didn't it?

Weeks, later, he became familiar with Yuma's house as a guest; days spent over when Yuma invited him, nights spent over because ~his mother and father were fighting again~, _Yuma-kun, do you mind if—_, kisses stolen in corners and boyish giggles out loud to his body fluttering furiously with the excitement of deceit in quiet, Yuma trusting him with this secret and that lie, nights on Yuma's rooftop making shit up as he went along and trying not to piss himself laughing.

And Vector never once used the door.

He doesn't plan on doing that today, either, takes the usual window like Kaito would or Nasch would or Shingetsu would. Except that when he tries this time it's so fucking cold that his fingers go numb and he's slower than usual and he doesn't time it right and when that shrillass sister of Yuma's goes, "Hey! What the hell!", Vector slips and he falls and lands on his ass on the ground in front of Yuma's porch.

Think fast.

"Aah! I'm so, so, so sorry, Tsukumo-san!"

"...Eh? Aren't you—"

"Th-they call me Shi-Shingetsu Rei! I was one of Yuma-kun's classmates, but I had to go away for a bit because of s-s-some family business…" He smiles, sheepishly scratches the back of his head; slipping into Rei is just like walking, and as long as he watches how he phrases things, it's not even a lie.

The sister squints at him, but it looks like Tsukumo Yuma's been an idiot once again, hasn't told her anything about a boy named Shingetsu Rei or a Barian named Vector, and she nods, smiles, and invites him in; lunch is just about ready and Yuma'll be home soon, won't Rei-kun join them?

* * *

Yuma takes his sweet time to come home and the oldass lady and the sister don't want to eat without him, so Vector heads up to Yuma's room and basks in its warmth and then climbs up into the attic, too, just for old time's sake, you know? It's not the first time he's been _here _alone, either, since Yuma being asleep is basically Yuma not being around except for the constant snoring (impossible to sleep with, by the way, he didn't get a wink on those nights and gave Yuma an extra ten points per snore). He spent most of those nights moving Yuma's stuff around slightly to the left so Yuma'd stub his toe the next day, and then he would volunteer to kiss it better. Worth it.

The place is a mess now, in the lived-in kind of way, like whenever Yuma's home he's busy or he just doesn't have the heart to clean it up because he likes it better that way, and Vector would clean it up to inconvenience him but there's something fundamentally wrong with passive-aggressive cleanliness, so instead Vector just pulls off his jacket and hops into Yuma's hammock, sets it on his head to hide the afternoon light, and takes a nap.

He's up again maybe twenty minutes later when Yuma punches him awake.

"_Whoa_, hey, is that any way to treat your _best friend_?"

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Your sister gave me _permission _to cross the threshold," Vector says, rolling his eyes. "We fae have ways of wiggling our way in."

Did he just call himself a fairy?

Whether he did or not, Yuma doesn't even have the mental capacity to get it; he just sort of stands there with this stupid look on his face, which Vector frowns at, then gets up off the hammock and makes to move the edges of Yuma's mouth into a smile, "Great to see you again, Shingetsu-kun," except then Yuma slaps him away, which, wow, rude.

"Don't touch me," Yuma says, apparently more tired than angry, and he opts to put down a bunch of shopping bags on the floor and turn his back to Vector, which Vector thinks is pretty ballsy of him, because, uh, hello, backstabber trying to talk to you here?

"What's your problem?" Vector yawns, then bounces back into the hammock, his arms crossed to pillow his head and his legs in the air, and he smiles, like, hey, welcome to my crib, you like what you see, but Yuma's still not looking at him, is busy rummaging through his bags and not really paying Vector any mind, which, disrespectful much?

Vector uses one shoe to take off the other and flings it in the direction of Yuma's head.

That gets his attention. "Yes?"

Vector hops off the hammock again, crouches next to Yuma and stares at the contents of the bags, colorful tissue paper and bags of chocolate, some cards and shit and dumb ornaments that were on sale at the mall earlier, and he snorts, steals three pieces of chocolate. "_This _is what you're ignoring me for?"

Yuma smiles, which catches him off guard and pisses him off.

"When Shark told me you were back I was kind of scared," Yuma admits, "but if you can't act like you used to anymore, I figure you're pretty harmless."

"Not true," he replies smoothly, because _harmless_? That stings. "I could stab you at any—" _No, you can't, what if you're asleep then you couldn't stab him, and you don't have anything to stab him with right now—_

For all the attention Vector wanted earlier, it's only now, as he has his little fit, that Yuma pays attention. Yuma laughs, then goes back to his baubles and wrapping paper and junk, and Vector has some things _he'd _like to cut up—"Fuck."

"I'm not gonna lie to you," Yuma says then, as he signs a card for Mizael and drops in a brown scarf that Vector knows Mizael will hate because Mizael has to have the latest cashmere and that shade of brown clashes with his shoes or something, and Vector tries to focus on Miza-chan's scowl instead of Yuma's words, because _wow_, "I'd rather you not be back. But I'm happy that if you got a second chance, you won't hurt anyone anymore."

It's rather naive to think that just because he can't lie he's not going to hurt anyone.

Vector says instead, "Mizael's going to hate that scarf."

Yuma blinks. "No kidding?" He shuffles through the other bags, holds up a pair of boxing gloves. "Will Alit like this?"

"Alit," growls Vector, "will like anything that has been within your immediate vicinity for longer than two seconds."

Yuma smiles, satisfied, and sets Alit's gift aside. In good humor, he asks, "What about you, Vector? What would you want?"

"You to suck my—Oh, Yuma-kun! I almost forgot! I brought you a present, too~!"

From his pocket, Vector pulls out the collage he finished just before he came here, presents it with a little bow, business card style.

Yuma takes it wearily, stares at the crumpled up piece of paper stares at Vector stares back; opens it up, and…

"I made it juuuust for you! With all the lo"—ah shit, Yuma staring at it and Vector sort of knocking at his throat to get it to speed it up on that return, aaaand we're back—"_hate_ my heart can muster."

"...Are these pictures of Shark's butt?"

"Happy holidays, Yuma-kun, I hear Christmas is really a couples' kinda day!"


End file.
